Associated PressThe athleticism of teams such as Oklahoma City is proving to be an issue for the bigger, slower Lakers.

The five most interesting stories, rumors and notes in the NBA:

1. Stumbling their win way: Of the 16 teams that have earned a spot in the NBA playoffs, only one has a losing streak this morning, and it's a long one.

With two games remaining in their regular season schedule, the Lakers have lost five games in a row, with four coming against Western Conference playoff teams. The latest came Sunday in Los Angeles, where Oklahoma City turned a game that was tied with less than four minutes left into a 120-106 victory.

The Lakers are acting like a team trying send a message they seem to be going out of their way to get tough with potential playoff foes. Last week, they got chippy with Dallas -- with Steve Blake going nose-to-nose with Jason Terry -- as well as the Blazers, with Ron Artest trying to intimidate Gerald Wallace.

On Sunday, Kobe Bryant and Thunder center Kendrick Perkins got tangled up. Later, Lakers center Andrew Bynum took the ball out of the net after an OKC basket and threw it off Perkins' chest, earning a technical foul.

Perkins also relayed that with 14.1 seconds left and OKC's Thabo Sefolosha shooting free throws, Bryant had some words for him, the L.A. Times' Broderick Turner reports.

"He just asked me if we were happy about this win," Perkins said. "My
reply was, 'We're happy about every win. Yeah, we are happy about the
win and we are going to be happy if we win tomorrow.' So who's not happy
after a win? But you know, it's Kobe being Kobe."

Some dismiss the losses as simply the Lakers conserving energy for the playoffs. But after Friday's loss in Portland, there was a certain grimness in the Lakers' locker room, and coach Phil Jackson certainly did not look happy.

If the Lakers have an Achilles' heel, it's that their size and experience (meaning age) make them vulnerable to more athletic teams. The losing streak included losses to four teams -- the Nuggets, Warriors, Blazers and Thunder -- capable of running the Lakers to exhaustion, with all but Golden State potential playoff foes.

The Spurs, who play in Los Angeles on Tuesday and are a possible Western Conference Finals matchup for the Lakers, also can do that.

And yet, with the Lakers' track record of being two-time defending champions, you wonder if they're not sweating at all. Bryant and Jackson might put on a requisite look of concern, but then you see Lamar Odom in the Rose Garden locker room, happily chatting with a TV reporter as she tells him how much she is looking forward to his reality TV show, "Khloe and Lamar."

After Sunday's loss, Odom said via Twitter: "What up West coast? Tough loss, but I promise u we got dis.Who's ready 2 watch the premiere of #khloeandLamar?"

Then, responding to an apparent criticism about the show being a distraction, Odom added: "its only a distraction if u don't know what ur doin."

I guess we'll see soon enough if the Lakers know what they are doing.

2. Not a fan of LBJ's crowd: Tinker Hatfield is a legendary shoe designer for Nike, but he apparently does not enjoy working with one of the Beaverton company's biggest spokesmen, Heat star LeBron James.

Hatfield said during the private appearance in Miami that he quit working on James' personal signature shoes because he does not like James' entourage, ESPN's Brian Windhorst reports.

"LeBron is a great guy, I really like him, but when he comes into the
room and he’s got like eight other guys saying things," Hatfield said in a video taken at the appearance. "That is one
reason why the LeBron stuff, even though it does OK, it isn’t quite as
exciting to me as the Kobe stuff or what we’ve done with the Jordan
Brand."

Hatfield said he likes working with Bryant, who usually shows up with one person and is "very forward thinking" and "smart," and he also enjoys working with Carmelo Anthony, who is easy to work with.

But James' large entourage is just too hard to deal with, Hatfield said. "It’s too many people, too many ideas, too many opinions," he said.

APJason Terry was all smile again during the Mavericks win over the Suns.

3. Turning point: If the Mavericks get past their recent struggles and make a good showing in the playoffs, they might look back to a moment during their game against the Clippers on Friday.

Guards Jason Terry and J.J. Barea had a miscommunication that led to a Terry turnover, and the two started yelling at each other as a timeout was called and the players went to the bench, the Dallas Morning News' Eddie Sefko reports. Coach Rick Carlisle then apparently ordered Terry to to the end of the bench, with Terry having to be ushered there by assistant coaches, and owner Mark Cuban trying to calm him down, according to ESPN.

Here's the thing, though. When the incident happened, the Clippers were up 39-25. The Mavericks stormed back and won 107-96 to snap a four-game losing streak.

Terry never did re-enter the game, but he was on his feet cheering as the Mavs came back. He said it was just playoff intensity arising, and things were fine. Barea said he and Terry were fine. Carlisle added of Terry: "He's fine, and he's going to be fine."

4. One costly tardy: On Nov. 15, J.R. Smith showed up late for a Nuggets shootaround. That mistake might have cost him $750,000.

Here's the math, as compiled by Denver writer Chris Tomasson and conveyed via Twitter. Smith, Tomasson writes, has a bonus clause in his contract that would pay him $750,000 if he plays 2,000 minutes and the Nuggets win 42 games during the regular season.

The 42 wins is long done, but with just two games remaining, Smith has played 1,899 minutes, meaning he would have a play every minute of two overtime games to get to 2,000.

Tomasson writes that Smith missed the shootaround in Phoenix and landed in the doghouse of coach George Karl, who used him just one minute total in the next three games. Amazing.5. MVP for Kings? Of the all the odd things resulting from the Kings' imminent departure from Anaheim, this one takes the cake.

The Phillipine Star newspaper is trying to sell the notion that a Filipino millionaire could buy the Kings. The paper later identified the buyer as Manuel V Pangilinan, a Manila-born businessman whose nickname is the easily chantable MVP, and who supposedly has been given a chance to buy the team. The development "sent a jolt of electricity down the spines of many people in this basketball-mad country," the Star reports. Hopefully not literally.

Ah, but spoilsport Ailene Voison of the Sacramento Bee checked this out, and Kings co-owner Joe Maloof texted her that the whole notion was "ridiculous."

But then, so is ripping out the hearts of thousands of fans.

Meanwhile, as the Kings' stay in Sacramento comes down to two home games -- tonight against the Thunder and Wednesday against the Lakers -- the early postmortems are flying. Voison writes that the end might have started at the end of 2010, when the Kings started the season poorly, costing them a chance to win back fans.